Tronoša Monastery, Orthodox monastery in Loznica, Serbia

Tronoša is a Serbian Orthodox monastery between Tršić and Korenita, 17 km southeast of Loznica. Its single-nave Church of the Presentation of Mary, built in 1834 in the Raška style, has a tall tower with a dark multi-tiered roof and a cross, rough light-colored stone walls, a red tiled roof, and an octagonal dome with narrow arched windows under a gray metal roof. A low stone wall with tiled coping runs across the foreground.

According to tradition, King Stefan Dragutin began the monastery, and his widow Queen Catherine finished it in 1317. The Ottomans looted and razed the original building several times in the 14th and 15th centuries, leaving no trace of its appearance. It was rebuilt on the old foundations in 1559, when the Church of the Presentation of Mary was erected under hegumen Pajsije. In 1791 the hieromonk Josif Tronošac copied the 1526 Tronoša Chronicle here; the copy remains at the monastery, the original in Vienna.

The monastery's name comes from the three rivers that meet nearby. On Maundy Thursday, villagers bring two candles of 50 kg of wax and 1.5 m in height into the church, a custom on Serbia's intangible heritage list. A section houses the Museum of Vuk's early schooling, as Vuk Karadžić learned to write here.

Tronoša lies 17 km southeast of Loznica, in the forested area of Korenita village, close to Tršić. The monastery is an active female community, so visitors dress modestly and keep to areas open to the public. On the road to the monastery stands the Chapel of St. Pantaleon with the ten-pipe Fountain of the Nine Jugović, restored in 1968.

Two plowmen's candles are cast each year from 50 kg of wax and stand 1.5 m tall. On Maundy Thursday villagers carry them into the church and light them before the icons of Christ and the Virgin, a custom meant to protect the harvest and inscribed on Serbia's intangible cultural heritage list.